On Wednesday 23rd January, the Sustainability Team at DMU held an SDG Teach In Workshop, which all staff were invited along to.

The SDG Teach-in is an NUS scheme that aims to raise awareness for the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and why they should be at the heart of further education, giving young adults the tools and knowledge needed to help to make a change after they graduate.

The teach-in takes place for 1 week during February, this year it’s from the 18th-22nd. Educators are asked to pledge to include the SDGs in their teaching, learning and assessment throughout this week, and hopefully they continue to do this outside of the Teach In. The Universities, schools and colleges that take part are ranked by the number of educators who pledged and the number of students who were reached during the SDG Teach In week.

Our workshop brought together staff from various different departments and faculties across the university to discuss the SDGs and how to include them in their teaching. We had 3 guest speakers who came to talk about how they have begun to include the SDGs in their teaching, learning and assessment.

Nicola Thomas, a Senior Lecturer in Marketing came along to discuss how she has integrated Sustainability into the Marketing Curriculum, in which she focussed mainly on Goal 12: Responsible Consumption and Production.

Irene Antonopoulos is a Senior Lecturer in the Law School who spoke at the workshop. She ran through a seminar which she had recently taught on Climate Induced Displacement. This gave Irene’s colleagues real examples of how the SDGs can be included in teaching.

Jonathan Coope was our 3rd speaker; he’s a Research Fellow in mental health who teaches on both medical and sustainability based programmes. Jonathan spoke about how he has incorporated sustainability into his teaching, including both specific examples to the modules he teaches on and broader examples which his colleges could directly take and use in their own teaching.

The workshop was a huge success, with staff members feeling motivated to include the SDGs in their teaching and pledging to take part in the SDG Teach In 2019. If you’re a DMU academic staff member, you can get involved too! Find out more here and pledge to take part here: https://sustainability.nus.org.uk/sdgteachin/pledge to start your sustainability journey now!

Don’t forget to email us at sustainability@dmu.ac.uk to let us know when you’ve pledged!

Prepared by Charlotte Lingham, Frontrunner with DMU’s Sustainability Team.